


Tuscany

by cofax



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: episode-related, teamfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's late afternoon and the sun slants through the windows over the stone sink to bring the faded ochre walls to an even warmer tone. </i></p><p>Set after "Lost City". For Salieri.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuscany

Daniel pauses at the doorway, arms full. He was sent into the village for bread, but there were pastries there too, and the market in the square had fresh figs. He ended up with a bag full of food they really don't need for only two days, and a bunch of sunflowers wrapped casually in last week's Internationale.

It's late afternoon and the sun slants through the windows over the stone sink to bring the faded ochre walls to an even warmer tone. The light makes the wine in the glass on the table glow like the ruby laser in Sam's lab. The table is huge, chipped and battered by years of use, and as Daniel watches, Jack smashes a head of garlic against the surface with the flat of a very large knife.

"Daniel's back." Sam is curled on the bench, one bare foot tucked up underneath and a glass of white wine on the windowsill. She was out all day with Teal'c, and it's a shock to see her in civilian clothes for the first time in months.  
Jack glances up and then back down at the garlic. The knife flashes into and out of the sunlight as he chops. "Get the bread, Daniel?"

"Bread, fruit, flowers. And they had this soft goat cheese they let me taste--" He cuts off as Sam leaps to her feet and snatches the bag away from him.

Sam loves cheese. Sam really really loves goat cheese.

Jack's eyes crinkle, his smile hidden as he scrapes the garlic into a small bowl and starts chopping parsley. Daniel rescues the flowers from Sam and pulls a stool close to the table; he throws his shadow across Jack's work area but makes sure the sun hits Jack's face.

Jack is still pale, but he's less gaunt than he was. There's an ease in his movements, in the swing of his shoulders and his skill with the knife, that Daniel didn't see even two days ago, when they landed in Rome.

"God, Daniel, this is _great_!" Sam crows, voice muffled.

Daniel waits until Jack turns toward the stove with the bowl of garlic before he picks up Jack's glass. It's still nearly full, but there are smudges on the surface. Daniel takes a sip and raises his eyebrows at the quality but Jack catches him before he puts it back down.

"Hey! Get your own, we got three bottles."

"I know. I just--" He shrugs.

Like Sam, Jack is in civilian clothes: the only uniform he brought to Italy was the dress uniform for their audience. His blue collarless shirt hangs loosely, but the pasta on the stove, and the bread Sam is slicing, will probably help with that.

"I just?" Jack looks at him intently. Since he came back he's still been Jack, except more so. A little quieter sometimes, a little more intense. A lot more attentive to his team. He's _here_ in a way he hasn't been for some time.

As if he's learned something. But he won't say what, and Daniel doesn't have the words to ask. He might be afraid to ask. Daniel is the one who became a ball of glowing light, who converses with the higher planes, who talks metaphysics. But Jack just trumped him, and Daniel finds the whole thing unsettling without knowing precisely why. He hopes it's not jealousy, because that's just too fucked up.

"Nothing," he says, and steals another sip of Jack's wine. "Where's Teal'c?"

"Keep doing that and you're gonna lose a finger." Jack waggles the knife at him. "Teal'c's up the hill by the olive trees. He likes it here."

"What's not to like?" Daniel gives up on Jack's wine and pours himself a glass. When he turns back to the table he sees Sam looking suspiciously cheerful, and Jack is entirely too focused on the bottle of olive oil he's opening. "What? What?"

"You want to tell him, sir?" Sam's smile is blinding.

"Got a call while you were in the village," says Jack with a studied air that hasn't fooled Daniel for five years. "Hammond called in a few favors and extended our leave. We've got the villa for the next two weeks, if we want it."

"Oh."

Two weeks doing--well, nothing. No trips off-world, no desperate calls to the Asgard or the Tok'ra, no endless briefings. No need to debate the program, the Air Force's secrecy, or Jack's fate with yet another small-minded politician. Instead he could hike the hills around the villa, poke about the local shops for scraps of Etruscan pottery, watch Jack cook himself back to health.

A shadow crosses the window and Teal'c enters the kitchen. "Daniel Jackson. You were successful in your mission?"

Daniel looks from Teal'c, looming cheerfully in the doorway, to Sam at the stove stirring the pasta, to Jack, who has finally stopped chopping things and is leaning back against the table, arms crossed. Jack's wine glass, empty now, dangles negligently from two fingers. He cocks his head at Daniel, and the last light of the sun sparks off his narrowed eyes.

"Well?"

"Yeah," Daniel says, thickly, and words he can't say burn in his chest. It's too much. So he raises his glass to them all, something between a salute and a challenge. "You could say that."

END


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